Complaining to NHS England about procedures, or services they commissioned

NHS care is usually very good and most people don’t have any problems. But occasionally things can go wrong. This page tells you more about complaining to NHS England.

What is NHS England?

NHS England is an independent body, at arm’s length to the government. They:

make contracts with GPs who provide primary health services

buy or commission dental services, the services of opticians and pharmacies and certain other health services, like urgent dental care, health services for people in prison and some specialised mental health services

allocate resources to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs)

oversee how CCGs work.

Complaints to NHS England

Any user of the organisation, their family, carers, or members of the public, can ask for advice, raise concerns or make a complaint about:

any of the services that NHS England buys or commissions

any of the policies and procedures NHS England has developed, or any of the functions they carry out.

If you have a complaint about NHS primary care services, you can either complain directly to the organisation providing the services, or to NHS England who commissions the service. For example, you may not feel comfortable about complaining directly to your GP, so you could complain to NHS England instead.

NHS England will use the same NHS complaints procedure that your GP or the CCG would use.

If the complaint involves more than one NHS body, they will decide which is the most appropriate body to take the lead in co-ordinating the complaint and communicating with you about it. They will ask your permission before they pass the complaint to another body or forward it to the provider of the service you’re complaining about. If you don’t give your permission, they may not be able to investigate your complaint.